[Interludes #3] The World Serpent Inn
Ixin looked at the face in the mirror and felt an icicle touch her heart. Her
HUMAN heart. Without the fiery magic of a draconic fundamentum to warm her, everything had felt cold to her since they brought her back. But this was different, she knew.
It was very difficult to look in the mirror and see a stranger's face staring back.
She raised an unfamiliar hand to touch the unfamiliar face reflected in the silvered surface and was unsurprised to find the hand trembling. She licked her lips nervously and the woman in the mirror did the same.
"Munthrek-pothoc," she muttered under her breath and watched the woman in the mirror mouth the words.
The High Justiciars hadn't wanted to tell her the name of the girl whose body she was wearing, but she managed to coerce Ophiel into indulging her curiosity. In life, her name had been Moranea of Briofield, and she had died from exposure after getting lost in a snowstorm. She was pretty by the standards of the people hereabouts with hair as dark as a moonless night and eyes the color of damp moss. There was a peculiar dusting of freckles across her nose, and her lips were thin - too thin for Ixin's liking. But it was either this or the sword.
Not a hard decision to make, really.
She'd died once and come back, after all. Somehow, it seemed wrong not to do it again. So she'd agreed to have Ayremac's friends draw her soul out of the samsara sword and put it into this girl's body, eager to discover the purpose in her second rebirth. There had to be a reason why death couldn't hold her.
Didn't there?
"Lady Chaririejir?" a voice called from outside her chamber door. It was Ophiel, the lesser Justiciar who had been assigned to attend Ixin until she fully recovered. Time was her senses had been so acute that she would have heard Ophiel's footsteps approaching down the hall long before the woman ever reached her door. But that, like so many other things, had changed forever.
"Yes?" Ixin replied, shyly clutching her dressing gown closed across her body, which, to Ixin's way of thinking was far too squat and frail. She'd lost a full foot in height and close to a hundred pounds of muscle by taking up residence in Moranea's body. Not to mention scales, claws, wings, and every other proof of her illustrious heritage with Clan Vermillion.
Her door opened, letting in a chill draft from the hallway that sent a prickle of gooseflesh running over Ixin's body. She shuddered, hoping that Ophiel wouldn't notice; the Justiciars were sure to interpret any sign of frailty as a sign she was not fit to leave their care. Ophiel met Ixin's eyes and the look of concern on the Justiciar's face told the sorceress that the woman had noticed the tremble.
"Yes?" Ixin repeated, a note of indignation in her voice as she lifted her head and squared her shoulders.
"Are you unwell, my lady?" Ophiel asked with enough genuine concern that Ixin felt her irritation melt away. She shook her head.
"I'm fine," she said. "It's cold. That's all." She looked away and caught sight of the strange, dark-haired woman in the mirror. "I never used to get cold," she added.
"I understand," the Justiciar said and Ixin almost wanted to scream that she did not. No one could possibly understand what it was like to find yourself so alien. But she didn't. Instead she said, "Thank you."
Ophiel smiled and went to the wardrobe. She drew out some fur wraps that would help to keep winter's teeth out of Ixin's flesh. She lay them across the bed and said, "The High Justiciar is going to be reading from the Writ after lunch today. I thought you might want to join me." Ixin looked at the guileless woman and smiled.
"That would be fine," she said.
Elsewhere...
"This is a waste of time," Cerrakean grumbled, swiping casually at a thick, woody vine that hung down before her. Her glittering black scimitar neatly severed the vegetation, dropping it with a muffled fwump! to the ground. She stooped to duck through the new opening. A moment later, Maleko did likewise, although he continued to consult the
Tome of Worldly Memory without looking up.
"On the contrary, Cerrakean, this is the only use of our time that makes any sense," the elf assured her. "All of the divinations indicate that the other coins - and the other Grey Companions - have gone to the Astral Plane. So unless you have some undisclosed ability to
Plane Shift us there, finding the World Serpent Inn is our best chance to continue the hunt." Cerrakean snorted and spat a gobbet of phlegm into the undergrowth.
"Who builds an inn out here in the middle of nowhere?" she asked. "This is pure wilderness. There's nothing for miles!" The elf sighed.
"Not yet," he told the hobgoblin. "The Inn won't achieve cotermination with Orune at the Fairy Well portal until tonight at sundown. So you should spend more time looking for it and less time arguing with me. If we don't find it by sundown, we'll have to wait an entire moonsdance for the next cotermination." Cerrakean pressed on, her lip curling back from yellowing fangs.
"Elves..." she muttered and swiped disgustedly at some more vegetation.
The Fairy Well was all but invisible beneath its tangled shroud of vegetation. Together Del and Cerrakean were able to clear away enough of the greenery to reveal the Well's dark shaft leading into the depths beneath the forest floor. The repeating symbol of a serpent curled into a horizontal figure eight eating its own tail was worked around the lip of the Well and Maleko let out an excited laugh at its discovery.
"That's it!" he cheered. "That's the symbol of the World Serpent Inn!" Cerrakean looked first at the symbol and then around them at the press of trees.
"So where's the inn?" she demanded and Maleko raised a thin pale hand.
"The inn will arrive at sunset," he told her with the certainty of one who trusted absolutely in his books.
Sunset wasn't far off, but each of them possessed excellent night vision so it wasn't immediately apparent when Orin's Shield at last took its rest. Their first indication was the faint sound of voices coming from the Fairy Well. As they peered down into its black depths, the smell of cooking meat and pipe smoke rose up to meet them. Far below them they could make out the light-etched outline of a door set into the side of the shaft. They could also see that there was now a wooden ladder leading down from the top of the well to the door.
Maleko went for it at once, but Del put a hand on the elf's elbow. The janissary looked meaningfully at his own arms and armor and said, "Perhaps I should go first." Maleko smiled sheepishly.
"Of course," he said, motioning to the ladder. "Good idea."
The descent was easy enough and the sounds of voices and the clink of glasses and cutlery grew louder as Del drew nearer the door. At last he reached it and paused. Below him he could see the surface of the water reflecting back the starlight above. And looking upwards he saw his two companions peering at him expectantly over the side.
"Go on!" Cerrakean urged and Del nodded, pushing on the door.
It opened easily onto the central chamber of the World Serpent Inn which resembled nothing so much as any one of a dozen well-appointed taverns Del had been in during his lifetime, with plank floors underfoot and venerable wooden beams overhead. This common room was a large, rectangular chamber dominated by a pair of flagstone fireplaces, one at each end in which fires burned and spits of meat sizzled and popped. Great tables and heavy oak chairs fill the space in between, and patrons gathered around these tables in groups of twos and threes to chat, but many turned to regard him as he entered. A balcony with more tables, accessible via a spiral staircase in one corner, formed a partial second floor for the chamber and more faces looked down from this vantage point as well.
Many of the faces were human, although he saw one with dark skin and horns sitting at a table with a well-groomed half-orc. At another a massive creature which appeared to be made at least half of stone drank with a pair of dwarves with brass skin and beards that seemed to burn perpetually without being consumed. What Del at first took for an avarial was just ducking through a doorway at the rear of the chamber; but his wings were too shiny, his platinum hair too perfect for him to be anything less than a celestial. He had with him a young woman who spared Del a backward glance that seemed to burn as she left the room.
"You should go see Mitchifer, the barkeep," a buzzing voice to Del's left said. The half elf turned to see what looked like an animated suit of articulated plate armor. It bore a curious triangular mark of three circles connected by lines upon its helm and a series of raised characters were worked into its breastplate: KRK-7.
"Even I can tell that you are lost, fleshling," the armor said, its voice underscored by a tinny buzzing like a wasp's wings. It raised a three-fingered hand and pointed at a burly, bearded man standing behind the bar. "Speak with Mitchifer. He will tell you what to do."
His first inclination was to chase down the celestial. Someone of such an honorable nature might prove to be a beneficial ally in a place like this. But that door was now closed, and Del had serious concerns about what dimension he might find, should he go chasing celestials out doors of taverns that disappeared at regular intervals. Scanning behind the bar, he decided on the man he presumed to be Mitchifer and began in that direction.
He had spent plenty of time in taverns with Omar Lagasse, but leaving Maleko and Cerrakean at the top of the well behind the door gave the place a surreal feeling. Most of the patrons turned their attention away as he maneuvered across the room, but he had to endure a few lingering stares.
Mitchifer was somewhere in his middle forties, and looked as if he had tended bar all his life. He had the practiced air of a man completely within his element. As Del approached, Mitchifer gave him an appraising glance and placed a pewter mug of ale in front of him.
Del gave a slight smile and nodded his thanks. He took a long draught and began to organize his thoughts when two more mugs were slapped down next to the first. He frowned, thinking perhaps Mitchifer had misread him as a man of the drink, at which point Del paused to consider that perhaps he had been drinking too much lately. But then his shoulder was gripped roughly and he half-turned to find Cerrakean and Maleko sidling up to the bar as well.
"Going to leave us in the well while you have all the fun, were you?" Cerrakean joked, her pointed teeth bared in a grin.
Before long, Maleko and Mitchifer were engaged in a detailed discussion of beer and ale brewing techniques. It just so happened that the Maltalia family had learned of some unusual fermentation processes in the course of trading with the hill dwarves of Rockhome.
Officially, trade with the dwarves was declared illegal when the Diviners rose to power in Hule, cutting off contact between Rockhome and the rest of Orune, but Del said nothing on the matter. Maleko had been able to correctly identify the type of grain used to produce the keg beer Mitchifer was serving this day, much to the barman's amazement. And that sort of connection was just the thing to turn the man's attitude in their favor. Mentioning the questionable legality of how Maleko had obtained that knowledge would do nothing but hurt their cause.
Del and Cerrakean passed the time mingling with the more "approachable" patrons in an effort to glean information which might help in their search. Del spoke at length with the a pair of humans and Cerrakean went head to head in a game of drunken daggers with the bearded dwarves. But, in the end it was Maleko's camaraderie with Mitchifer that yielded the best results. The barkeep was confident that the person who could deliver them to the Astral Plane was Grawl, captain of an astral tradesman called the Dire Hag. And the best way to find him was through his agent, a halfling by the name of Bloj who operated in the City of Doors.
The trio resigned to their rooms for the night, Maleko promising to send along a barrel of the Maltalio's finest ale as a personal gesture of gratitude.